Testing Temu 2TB USB Flash Drives (Spoiler: Fake Capacity)

Very recently I found myself on Temu.com looking for inexpensive drive enclosures to house a few SATA SSDs that have been collecting dust. It seemed reasonable that these obsolete 2.5-inch solid state drives could be used as oversized 512GB and 256GB USB flash drives whenever the occasion permitted, and that Temu could facilitate this transition for pennies on the dollar. I was so impressed by the broad selection of drive enclosures, including some for NVMe SSDs, that my mental shopping list grew with each new find. Then, out of nowhere, came the elusive unicorn I was not expecting: 2TB USB flash drives.

Temu, Shein, Alibaba

Whenever visiting foreign shopping websites such as Temu, Shein, Alibaba, and the like, I always guard my expectations. Sure, their prices are more competitive than their capitalist counterparts, but whatever value they earn in sticker price they typically shed in quality. I was dubious, but took the plunge based on Temu’s solid return policy, as well as the protection my credit card company provides. I still wanted the drive enclosures, so this was icing on the cake. Or so I thought.

The entire lot of six different 2TB USB flash drives all arrived on the same day, and well ahead of the rest of my order due to be delivered in at least another week. Temu offered me a decently sizable credit to have the items all shipped via slow boat from (presumably) China, but I declined, as this project needed to keep its momentum.

Mythical 2TB USB Flash Drives

Each of these 2TB USB flash drives lacked any real packaging, at least in the retail sense that you might consider as most of these items tend to be offered in clamshell or blister packaging. Not these USB drives. Each unit was packaged into its own clear sealed bag, which in turn was placed inside a grey/black poly mailer, which in turn were all grouped together into one much larger poly mailer. There was plenty of Christmas morning feel to the event.

With the 2-terabyte capacity being a questionable and ever-present concern, I immediately set out to test these USB flash drives on my fastest computer system. In the event these USB flash drives were legitimately 2TB, I would want to test read and write speeds using the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20G on my new motherboard whenever possible, or connect to any of the USB 3.2 type-A ports offered. With thumb drive at the ready, my hand was nearing the tower when it occurred to me: this might carry malware! So now my testing had to wait for a virtual machine to spin up.

Once cleared of malicious payload, I began the process of testing. My primary concern was to confirm capacity, and secondary was transfer speeds. I had not even started the tests when I recognized the black-colored key inside the USB connection, indicating USB 2.0, further raising my suspicion. Undeterred, I readied the system for testing.

ValiDrive USB Mass-Storage Drive Testing Software

Steve Gibson, author of the free ValiDrive 1.0.1 software, offers this very useful test tool for download directly from his Gibson Research Corporation website. I knew this would be a handy test tool when, at the top of the page, I discovered (and identified with) the following mention:

The drive maps above are typical of the fraudulent drives which are flooding the market. This shows a drive sold as two terabytes (2TB) which actually only contains 62 gigabytes (62GB) of flash storage.

According to his website, “ValiDrive performs a quick, random-sequence spot-check across the drive’s entire declared storage space. At every location it verifies the successful storage and retrieval of random (unspoofable) test data.” It seemed as though I was both a sucker for a deal, and a mark for would-be counterfeiters. I pushed on.

Mr. Gibson’s software is quite well designed, as it immediately asked me to remove the USB storage device it detected (inserted to install drivers if needed, which alarmingly was necessary) if that was the device I wanted to test. Immediately upon removal, it alerted me that it detected the action, and that I could re-insert the device to begin testing. It took mere seconds to see where things were heading, and my worst fears were soon realized.

The initial test displayed exactly what I suspected from the moment I found this 2TB USB flash drives: they, like the imitation high-density Micro SD Cards that came before them, are programmed and partitioned to been seen by Windows as a much larger drive. In this case, Windows 11 detected a 1.90 terabyte storage device formatted exFAT. The truth, however, was a very different reality:

Ultimately, the 2-terabyte USB 3.0 flash drive I had purchased from Temu was actually 69.3GB (likely slightly more, to accommodate the write-spoofing feature). Read and write speeds were abysmal, as you might expect, and I did.

Shop Return Like A Billionaire

Irritated, I returned to Temu to demand my refund. They were prompt, courteous, and professional… but they weren’t too concerned. I made a concerted effort to explain how these fake 2TB drives are being sold all over their market, but the pleasant canned responses didn’t reflect the conversation I was hoping to have. In the end, I got my money back, and after rejecting two separate offers to re-ship replacement products, was also permitted to keep these bogus drives. They were not 2TB, not by a longshot, but they still offered (barely) enough to be useful elsewhere.

In conclusion, this is yet another example of buyer beware, and have solid buyer protection with a good return policy.